May days

“En mai fais ce qu’il te plait” has roughly the same meaning as “Ne’er cast a clout till May be out” but the sense of doing as you please could equally apply to the bonanza of public holidays which occur this month.

The annual cycle has its own particular rhythm in France which, whilst it can be annoying if it catches you unawares and out of petrol, has a certain charm once you know how it operates. In August, the whole country shuts up shop and everyone, from builders to doctors will tell you “Oh can’t get that started until La Rentrée“, meaning September, when all the world goes back to school and work. From then until February everyone knuckles down and keeps their nose to the grindstone with only the briefest of breaks for a couple of huge meals at Christmas and New Year, but only one day off work for each, and none of the frenzied efforts by furniture stores, as in Britain, to get you a new sofa delivered before Christmas!

Things loosen up a little in February for the half term holidays. The French have a very slightly sheep-like attitude to holiday destinations and there is such a national rush to the (French) Alps, that the country has had to be divided into three school zones to cope with the crush on the ski slopes.
Easter goes by with just a nod. The school terms are so out of sync by now after the skiing break that this year not one area was actually on holiday over Easter itself. . . .

And then comes May!

Many English visitors are disconcerted to trip up over so many unexpected public holidays when, in smaller places, everything except the all important boulangerie pâtisserie will be closed all day or indeed for several days, depending on how some of the moveable feasts fall that year.

May 1st is a public holiday celebrating workers’ rights but is more traditionally thought of as la fête du muguet. Small bunches of lily of the valley are offered for sale and it is customary to bring a sprig as a little gift, for good luck. May 8th is the next, commemorating the end of WWII and there will be an official ceremony and wreath laying at the Monument aux Morts in every town and village in France. The same of course happens on Armistice Day, November 11th, which is celebrated on the day itself rather than, as in the UK on the closest Sunday. It is worth noting as well that there is never any religious element to these ceremonies – the church and state being firmly separated.

Indeed, in such a fervently secular state it seems surprising that the religious feast days of Ascension and Whit Monday are also bank holidays, together with the Assumption on August 15th, although Whit Monday is now a bit of a grey area. After the scorching summer of 2003, when France was horrified at the number of elderly people who died alone of heat related complications, the government decreed that Whit Monday would no longer be a public holiday and the tax revenue collected from work on that day would be devoted to better care in the community for vulnerable pensioners. There were rumblings, but it is now a semi bank holiday, which means you really don’t know where you are.

Ascension day always falls on a Thursday, and generally gives rise to a long week end, or pont but in some years, the combination of dates can occasion a whole run of holidays, known as a viaduc and vastly unpopular with employers. This year May 1st falls on a Wednesday, which is generally thought a bit too long to make a bridge, but the 8th is another Wednesday with Ascension on the 9th so we are preparing for a big influx of visitors with buzzing markets, sporting and cultural events and the season generally getting into gear.

People here find it puzzling that Britain has only 8 public holidays compared with 11 in France, and no equivalent to the 14th July. Certainly a sage and serious government has ensured a more even distribution of jours de fête in the UK, but there is something charmingly frivolous about May in France which, especially after this year’s dismal winter and late spring, marks an optimistic opening of the door to summer. License indeed to do as we please!

Where in the World?

Over the week end Arlebosc played host to a large group of people from different countries who take part in the Venice Carnival every year.  Quite understandably they want to get more fun out of their wonderful costumes and masks than is afforded by this single annual outing.  So for a couple of days the main road through the village was closed and beautifully costumed groups and couples strolled through the streets and paused for photo opportunities.  It was fascinating to set Venetian opulence against the backdrop of an Ardèche village, and the atmosphere was both mysterious and magical.

The boulangerie had come up with a rather strange tarte à l’italienne for the occasion and the newly re opened café was serving equally unauthentic pizza, together with moules frites! Sadly no one was offering our favourite Venetian aperitif lo spritz col bitter, but it was great to be able to sip a castagnou sitting in the middle of the village, in fact in the middle of the road!

Do English villages have a comité des fêtes? Perhaps they don’t need one, but the Arlebosc committee is never short of original ideas for organising a celebration.

Dry stone walls

Over the last few weeks – in our “other life” travelling with young Americans through Europe – we have criss-crossed the continent from Nice to Dublin, Rome to Budapest, Athens to Paris.  During my travels I attuned my eyes to look more closely at the dry stone walls which divide the European countryside or retain terraces.  This is all in the hope that it will  give me some inspiration for the reconstruction of our garden wall at Les Sarziers.

Here is the ultimate craftmanship of wall building at Delphi, the Polygonal wall of 548 BC.

 As Arlebosc is far from being the navel of the universe, this wall would look a bit out of place.  Maybe  the type of wall seen in Ireland  (below) would do better for our garden.  The gaps are there to avoid the wall being blown over by gusts of wind, or – as the locals say – to allow the cows to check that the grass is not greener on the other side.

 Here is another Irish wall just a few miles away.  This looks more like the challenge we have to deal with in the Ardèche. There is no stone of the same size and shape.

 In the Ardèche we may do things upside down, but I believe we are still the best stone wall builders.  Here is an example just below the church in Arlebosc.

Learned anything?  I am not sure.

What’s in the water?

As a child on family holidays in France the national obsession with bottled mineral water seemed extraordinary.  Water in a bottle – what an idea!  How things have changed – in the UK these days there seem to be as many Natural Highland Springs as the supermarkets have shelves on which to stack the bottles and restaurants habitually make a fuss about bringing a jug of  water to the table, whereas in France they are legally obliged to provide free tap water.

My parents believed  that the French drank mineral water because the stuff that came out of pumps and wells was unsafe (although we drank gallons of it and survived) and certainly my early memories of quintessential foreignness involve a heady aroma compounded of Gauloise smoke, pastis, melons . . . and drains.

Today there are around 50 varieties of mineral water readily available out of an estimated total number of 200 produced in France.  The big names such as Volvic, Badoit and Evian (commercialised by Danone) and Contrex, Vittel and Hépar (by Nestlé) are known worldwide, as of course is Perrier, a naturally carbonated water from the South West, with the wonderful Villemot posters and the timeless slogan Perrier c’est fou!

The heyday of small local mineral springs began in the late 19^th C, boosted by the European craze for thermal cures.  Towns like Vichy became fashionable watering holes for the leisured classes, complete with parks, concert halls, salons de thé and of course the établissements thermales, where the salty water was drunk and all kinds of hydrotherapy provided for the ailments of the age from hysteria to gout.  Still today there is a strong belief in the value of such thermal treatments.  A local friend of ours takes an annual three week thermal cure at Neyrac les Bains in the South Ardèche, where the water has medically recognised beneficial properties for the treatment of arthritis and rheumatism.  The cure is prescribed by her family doctor and the cost covered by the French Health Service.

But back to the water bottle on the table.

When transportation was still a real problem on the endlessly twisty roads of the Ardèche, water was bottled and sold locally in a vast number of villages, each one vaunting the properties of its own brew with reckless abandon and with names such as L’Excellente and La Salutaire from Prades, La Fortifiante at La Bégude, La Suprème, La Férrugineuse Incomparable, and La Reine des Basaltes at Asperjoc.

There are at least 65 mineral springs in the Ardèche, but over time many have become blocked or contaminated and in others the flow is too weak for them to be commercially viable.  The best known of our mineral waters is Arcens, available nationwide, but recently, perhaps as a reaction to the global giants of food supply, smaller local varieties are making a comeback.  Buvez ardéchois, is the slogan of our micro brewery in Lamastre and this could also apply to the water.

The one you are most likely to encounter is the sparkling Ventadour or still Chantemerle (previously known as La Miraculeuse!) from Meyras.  One million bottles of these are produced annually.

The third spring at Meyras, Pestrin, was allegedly discovered by a troubadour returning from the Crusades who found that the water could cure the peste or plague.  On this label from the inter-war years we are urged to take a cure of 5 bottles of radioactive Pestrin to deal with malaria, typhoid, liverishness or general exhaustion!

Pestrin was bought after the fall of France in 1940 by Paul Ricard, the incorrigibly colourful inventor of Ricard, le vrai pastis de Marseille.  Under the Occupation, as part of its National Revolution policy, the Vichy government outlawed the production of pastis, identifying it as symptomatic of the degeneracy of pre war France. Nothing daunted, Paul Ricard took to growing rice and fruit on his estate in the Camargue, which he distilled into fuel for use by the Resistance!

Closer to home there is La Marguerite at Gilhoc, about 8 miles from us, and in Désaignes, César, Faustine and Moise.  None of these is exploited commercially at present but in 1991 Moise was re bored and there is a project afoot to resume production under an  initiative by the Regional Park of the Ardèche to which Désaignes belongs.

Actually the tap water at Les Sarziers is particularly delicious – hard enough to have some flavour and free from any trace of chlorine.  But I find that I have acquired the French taste for the stuff out of the bottle, especially if it is carbonated.  Perhaps it just seems more festive, like the lovely slogan for Volvic: l’eau qui chante et qui danse - a little bit of gaiety in your glass.

Snow at les Sarziers

“La neige de février est de l’eau dans un panier” as they say!
February snow is like water in a basket. But it is pretty while it lasts.
Hover over the images for a description.

Empurany

Doghouse roof . . . waiting

Garden steps at Morlanche

Snowy walk in the wood

The vineyard at Morlanche

The Calabert roof

Grindstone

Ardèche Oranges . . . ?

We drove up to Paiharès, a lovely little mountain village, over the week end to stock up on fruit juice. We climbed the twisty road amid snow flurries, and the village came into view, clustered around its little church. Paiharès is located 200m higher than les Sarziers, and is well known for its apple trees, which are happier up here than in the drier conditions of the Doux valley.

About ten years ago a small pressing and bottling plant set up to produce apple juice, soon diversifying in to quince, apricot, peach and all the other local fruits. Called Nectardéchois, it is yet another small co operative enterprise which prides itself on providing a local service and making use of local produce. Anyone with 100kg of fruit can bring it to be pressed and leave with their own bottles of juice complete with personalised labels.

They make some delicious flavours, such as nectarine, cherry or strawberry and mixtures like apple, pêche de vigne and quince, but the reason we were there was to celebrate their first cuvée of orange juice.

Oranges from the Ardèche? What’s this all about?

Still faithful to their ideal of using local produce, they have come up with a very smart idea.

In Aubenas in the south of the Ardèche Sabaton, a venerable but less widely known company than Clément Faugier, have been making wonderful things out of chestnuts, truffles and ceps since 1907.

In the 1920′s Paul-Roch Sabaton, the original founder of the company joined forces with Jules Reynaud and began to diversify into fruit products – principally jams and fruit in syrup. They cornered a particular niche market in England with the export of blueberries in syrup. Blueberries are known to improve the eyesight of people working in poor or artificial light and they were imported principally into mining areas, to help preserve the sight of the miners. This may sound far fetched, but I was once prescribed blueberry extract and found that it did indeed have a beneficial effect.

During the war years sugar was severely rationed, and there were no more marrons glacés for the duration, but the company came up with various ingenious ideas for making erzatz jam using concentrated grape juice as a sweetener. Cans and jars were at a premium too and in order to obtain them little trips to the suppliers with a basket of Ardèche saucisson, cheese and butter were occasionally necessary . . .

On the death of his father, Paul Sabaton bought out his partners and the firm reverted to its original name. In 1961 he added a new line: crystallised orange peel. After a few false starts and adjustments to the recipe, Sabaton oranges really took off with pâtissiers and in the 1980s, with the other fruit products suffering from competition with imported and frozen fruits, they started to produce strips of candied orange peel which, covered in chocolate make the delicious orangettes for which Sabaton is now famous.

Back in Paiharès, Nectardéchois had the bright idea of purchasing the peeled oranges from Sabaton and pressing them for the juice, which enables them to work in the winter when there is no other fruit around. As they point out, although the oranges are grown in Valencia in Spain, they are purchased from an Ardéchois firm. The result, by the way, is delicious.

A regrettable unforseen circumstance however is that there are a number of very frustrated inhabitants of Aubenas who have lost their traditional supply of unused oranges.

On the Doghouse

We were in Paris for a couple of weeks being sophisticated, which was fun and a good break, but no sooner are we back down here than the pace picks up again. We are lucky to have our gorgeous base in the capital but we are frequently struck by the anonymity and regularity of life in the big city. Somewhow everything potters along in the same old way; bad weather is merely an inconvenience rather than a challenge to be embraced, social contacts tend to be reduced to aggressive encounters between you on your bike and a taxi in a hurry and the shops are full of stuff you don’t really need but are tempted to acquire.

Back at les Sarziers there is never a dull moment. At this dead time of the year, with the cows inside and the fields asleep, the locals are fellling timber and dealing with other maintenance jobs. We are following suit and attacking the renovation of a roof.

The little house (known as the Doghouse) where we live when we have Walksweeks guests in the main house, has been sagging for a while. The roof was put on eighty years ago, when the building was constructed. At that time, a well was being dug to irrigate the garden of the house next door and the excavated stones were used to build a garage with an upper floor. The creation of the Doghouse was our first attempt at renovation before we attacked the main house.

Bernard, the local builder has come up with a brilliant solution. By creating a new roof over the old one, we are able to keep our cosy boarded ceiling whilst installing two roof windows and a wood burning stove. It’s a pricey job though, and to keep the costs down we opted to take off the old tiles ourselves and prepare the roof for the big boys.

Work was due to start this Monday, and Bernard showed up with the bad news: there has been a delay making the main new roof beam, which will not be ready until the end of the week. We all know the stories about unreliable builders and their deadlines, but we had a trick up our sleeves!

So here we are on a lovely sunny Monday morning up on the roof removing the old tiles. (Click on one of the pictures for a larger version).

We got on at a cracking pace and by mid afternoon we had them all piled up ready for the lorry. Bernard had to confess himself impressed! The lorry duly backed up in front of the garage door and we enjoyed ourselves chucking in the tiles from a great height. We have kept a good few – you never know when you might need to roof a woodshed or a dog kennel – but the rest are for the dump.

Our next job was to remove the laths that the tiles had been hooked over, brush and vacuum the roof and then treat it with insecticide. It was a bit alarming being perched so high up on the ancient and slightly rotted boards, but the view is terrific and it was interesting to find old corn cobs, lime seeds and a ton of empty snail shells in amongst them – the leavings of generations of rodent residents who had made a cosy home in the insluation material and gorged themselves into hibernating insensibility.

By Tuesday lunchtime we were pretty knackered and inside having a cup of coffee when Bernard appeared again, slightly anxious this time. Without our noticinig, it had started to rain and he had come to see how we were getting on. The ball was by now firmly in his court and before dusk a burly and monosyllabic chap had turned up to attach the plastic covering which will be the first insulation layer of the new roof. Result! It would seem that if you need to pin your builder down on his dates there is no better way than removing your own roof!

Meanwhile, there are crêpe pans on offer and deals on eggs and flour in preparation for the traditional pancake-making for chandeleur this Sunday. Roger is finally having his operation and we are popping in regularly to keep an eye on his aged mother, who will be alone in the farmhouse. The days are slowly gettitng longer and life in the country keeps up its busy pace.

La Galette des Rois

It’s the 6th January, Epiphany or Twelfth Night and time to enjoy the ritual of the Kings’ Cake.  This is not really a cake but a delicious flaky pastry confection with a marzipan filling and hiding a secret.  From now until the end of the month boulangeries will be full of them - a last fling of end-of-year excess before the dismal days of January.  As our Walksweeks guests know well, we can rely on Marie and her husband, who run the boulangerie patisserie in Arlebosc, to come up with a particularly yummy galette.

Once you get your galette home there is a specific ritual to be followed.  The youngest member of the party has to hide under the table whilst it is cut into the same number of portions as there are people present.  (In the past an extra portion was cut, to be given to the first needy person to knock at the door).  The cutter asks “c’est pour qui?” and the voice under the table indicates the recipient of each slice.

It is advisable to eat your portion carefully, so as not to break a tooth on the little porcelain figurine which lurks in the marzipan.  The lucky recipient of the fève – which was once literally a dried bean – is designated king or queen for the day, wears the crown which is sold with the galette and is allowed to boss everyone around all day – guess who won ours!!

The tradition is a very old one, apparently deriving from the Romans and with obvious links to the reversal of roles of the twelve days of Christmas and the Lord of Misrule.

Since 1975 a Galette de l’Elysée has been presented to the President of France at his official residence, the Elysée Palace.  However this one does not contain a fève, and sends a clear message that, although he may be occupying a palace, he is definitely not a king and should not be getting any ideas!

Markus take note!!

The yoghurt pot

Recently a little red car has taken to nosing its way, extremely cautiously, down the lane. It chugs past the house at about 5 miles per hour, halts nervously at the crossroads and, after an extended pause, pulls into the road at an agonisingly slow pace and sets off laboriously towards Lamastre. Some time later the process is reversed and we see the driver peering anxiously over the steering wheel as she makes her way back up the hill. It is at this point that you realise that the car has not got a front number plate – it is a voiture sans permis, referred to by Markus for reasons fathomable only to himself as a “yoghurt pot”, and the bane of the French highways.

Before we get onto everything that is wrong with a system that allows totally unlicensed people to drive around in things that look like cars and act like cars but somehow escape all the regulations that other vehicles and their drivers have to adhere to, it is worth mentioning the particular circumstances surrounding our local red peril. Our neighbour Pascal (the wizard with the digger) comes from a family which has been regularly visited by tragedy, including several suicides and a brother who was crushed under one of his own combine harvesters. Recently his wife lost a long struggle with cancer, leaving him with two young children and his business, contracting work with earth-moving and agricultural machinery, to run. Pascal is out in all weathers and all hours, frequently returning long after dark in the summer harvesting season, so his mother in law, a widow herself, has moved in to help with the children. The snag is that she does not drive and it is essential to be mobile in our neck of the woods. The yoghurt pot is her salvation and one can only be pleased that this solution helps a family in need to get by.

HOWEVER . . . . !

Officially described as a voiturette these vehicles are to be encountered all over France (though fortunately they are banned from motorways) and are the most alarming things on the road in a country already noted for its alarming driving styles. Weighing 350kg, they have a 50cc engine, and a top speed of 45 kmph. The two seaters look exactly like any other small car, but are only required to have a license plate on the rear. Insurance and seatbelts are obligatory and only one passenger is allowed. But the real cruncher is the fact that you do not need to have, or to have ever held a license in order drive them (that is unless you are under twenty five, in which case you are required to take five hours (!) of on and off road instruction). Anyone else, from 26 to 126 can set off with cheerful insouciance and potter around, oblivious to other road users.

A very elderly, and very well lubricated neighbour of ours regularly used to roll up (still wearing his slippers) to visit Roger’s father, frequently ending up in the bank or stuck in the ditch, and puzzled that Kate did not seem to resemble his old friend as he last remembered seeing him! Yoghurt pots are the ideal solution for those who have lost their license for drunk or dangerous driving, who are a bit shaky and can no longer see that well, who remember the lanes and byways of their youth but are unfortunately unaware of the increase in speed and traffic.

Do not imagine that the yoghurt pot bears any resemblance to the sort of mobility scooter that terrorises the high street in many English towns. These are classy looking vehicles which retail for around 14,000 euros. The leading manufacturer is Aixam, based in the town of Aix les Bains with its production plant located at Chanas, about 40 miles north of us just across the Rhone.

On their website AIXAM presents its new Coupé range.
The precise, sharp lines are the sign of a classy model, a sculpted silhouette that exudes dynamic elegance. Each finishing touch is profiled to make the sensations stronger. YOUR COUPE IS UNIQUE: CONFIGURE YOUR BESPOKE MODEL
From a wide range of colours and decorative finishings . . . the colour of your roof, bodywork, decorations . . . have fun customising your Coupé!

Britain beware! They are definitely aiming at a new market. Closer attention to the promotional text reveals that from January 13th 2013 the UK will be brought into line with European licensing laws and anyone over 16 will be able to drive one. So look out for a yoghurt pot coming soon to a road near you!

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L’Esplanade II

When we began work on the lower garden the basic idea was to create a spacious terrace on which to sunbathe or lounge the shade of the sycamore and admire the view. This is how we started last January with Pascal and his digger.  As usual of course, the spectacular work was very quick but then followed by a great deal of agonising about levels and dealing with the fact that the rest of the garden is still on a pretty steep slope.  This is why we were so delighted with the sleepers, which have enabled us to get from this:

To this:

It is also very satisfying to know that, after many years of good service, the sleepers have been recycled so close to their original place of use on the Lamastre railway line and that from next summer the line will be operating again, following a full upgrade.

To continue the garden upgrade, Markus has almost completed the second section of the wall he started last autumn. This part involves a steep slope and a corner so he has been working with massive stones. Once again, although it is a job which progresses slowly, he finds it immensely satisfying and it certainly does look pretty amazing.

There is still a barbecue spot to be created, the flower bed to be renovated and a whole right hand side wall to be built, which will no doubt be the next big job, but we are very pleased with progress so far.  A friend who saw the terrace for the first time exclaimed that we now have une véritable esplanade, which sounds to us a little like the sea front at Brighton, but no doubt has just the right ring in French!